Then let’s also add Salvador Dali to the list. In 1958, Wallace tried to demystify “the enigma that is Salvador Dali,” and it didn’t go terribly well. It turns out that surrealist painters give surreal answers to conventional interview questions too. Pretty quickly, Wallace capitulates and says, “I must confess, you lost me halfway through.” Happily for us, the video makes for some good viewing more than 50 years later.

Comments (3)

This is most interesting in Part 1 (which was linked) to see Mike Wallace tell us how great the cigarettes he is smoking are. That part is such a great blast from the past and a great history lesson. Dali just comes off as a clown in these interviews. Today, I’d say he’s trying too hard to be different or “too cool for the room”.

It is a delight to see how a typical journalist struggles to penetrate a brilliant mind and how superbly he fails.
Geniuses truly think different and show that in all aspects of ttheir outer and inner lives.
Thank you!

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Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best educational media. He finds the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & movies you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.